


And there will be no tenderness

by gloatingraccoon



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Gen, Hivebent, In the Veil, Introspection, Multi, One-Sided Relationship, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 07:25:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloatingraccoon/pseuds/gloatingraccoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Eridan Ampora and you have a problem. You hate Sollux Captor more than anything else in the world, and you can’t even make him hate you enough. And unfortunately, as the Prince of Hope, you can tell when all hope is lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And there will be no tenderness

**> Enter name.**

Your name is **Eridan Ampora** and you have a problem.

You have several problems, in fact. The shitty meteor you’re stranded in with the looming threat of an omnipotent demon bent on exterminating your race is just the beginning of them. Then there’s your ex-moirail. **Feferi Peixes** , the Heiress Apparent, the girl you’ve been pathetically flushed for all your life, the painful, perfect symbol of everything you ever wanted and everything you screwed up. And then there’s that blasted mutant pissblood, who only makes things worse.

You are Eridan Ampora and you hate **Sollux Captor**.

You hate everything about him. You hate his stupid glasses and mismatched shoes, you hate the way he slouches and drags his feet when walking. You hate the way his knotty, bitten fingers dance restlessly on the keyboard, the way his bones stick out on his elbows and wrists, the way his veins run over his skinny arms like a stringy net. You hate his raspy voice and his ridiculous lisp and his unreadable typing quirk. The thought that Feferi took him as her matesprit makes your insides twist - the thought of those filthy lowblood fingers wrapping around hers, around the lovely form of her waist. It should be your fingers lacing with hers, rings clinking together, your hands wrapping around her to cuddle her close. The one time you walked in on them kissing in the transportalizers’ room it took all of your discipline to just leave instead of throwing up, and they didn’t even notice you, entirely too engrossed in each other. You wonder how she can stand the feel of those hideous oversized fangs on her lips - tender, luscious lips that should be yours to kiss and nibble and play with. You wonder how she can stand his lowblood heat and fast pulse on her cold seadweller skin. You wonder how warm he must feel exactly. You wonder if psionics are really enough to make that skinny ass body stronger than yours. You wonder how it would feel to knot your hands in his hair and sink your fangs in that weak, bony neck. You wonder if you could smell her salty scent on his skin.

You wonder if this would make you feel better. If being able to touch him, to hurt him - and by reflection, hurt her - could, in some cruel, twisted way, feel like having them both.

You are Eridan Ampora and wondering these things is not helping you at all. But unfortunately you know the signs of a black crush when you see them, and this is much worse than what you used to have with Vriska. You had the whole world in your hands back then, and she was an excellent way to vent what you had to suppress with Feferi. She was a demanding partner and more than a bit unsettling at times, but it was worth it. Now you’re nobody, just a refugee on a shitty meteor, and the way Sollux just keeps shrugging you off when you try to antagonize him only makes you hate him more. Want him more. And make things worse.

You hate Sollux Captor more than anything else in the world, and you can’t even make him hate you enough.

You feel like you’re starving, in a way that has nothing to do with food and everything to do with your adolescent body. You haven’t been touched in so long that the very thought makes your skin tingle. Kanaya plucked a wood splinter from your scarf the other day, brushing your chin for a moment, and you’re sure she noticed how that simple, meaningless gesture made you flush, even if she said nothing. Neither did you, because you’re actually fond of her, and you don’t want to push her away too. Because that’s what’s going to happen: pushing people away is apparently one of those things you’re pretty unbeatable at. Karkat too is going to get tired of your whining sooner or later and cotton on to the fact that you’ve been pale-flirting with him all along. You need someone to take care of you, you need to be part of something, to feel alive again. You are pathetic, and not even the kind of sweet, idealized pathetic that would make someone take pity on you. No, you are the bitter, obnoxious, desperate kind of pathetic, and you know it.

You are Eridan Ampora, and you need to do something. You need to break free from this hellhole full of people that you either barely tolerate or will alienate soon enough, free from the menace of that monster out there, free from the torture of wants and fears and hungers and hopes. Free from both her and him, because if you have to enter that shitty old lab again and see them whispering to each other on the horn pile and being so disgustingly happy together and have Feferi reading you like an open book and Sollux just brushing you off as if you were more boring than menacing, you could just…

Actually, you don’t know what you could do. And you’re not sure you want to find out, because as much as you need to do something, some part of you is afraid of what you could become, of what could happen if you finally gave in to the destruction that’s been breathing in your blood from the moment you were hatched, if you really broke free from this sick, suffocating paralysis in which at least you have still something to desire, something to hope for.

But you are the Prince of Hope, and you can tell when all hope is lost.

You are Eridan Ampora and you think you might be breaking down.


End file.
